‘It is natural for men to tell tales, and I suppose the short story was created in the night of time when the hunter, to beguile the leisure of his fellows when they had eaten and drunk their full, narrated by the cavern fire some fantastic incident he had heard of’. Thus speculates Somerset Maugham on the origin of short story in his eponymous essay. This was the story he wrote and he wrote a many. Maugham was immensely popular as a writer of short stories in the first half of the twentieth century, notwithstanding the turn of cold-shoulder – doubtlessly spurred by his huge commercial success – of the literary high-brows. His stories stand out by their bewitchingly singular simplicity, a plain, conversational prose that is effortless to read, and a plot that binds your attention from the first word to the last. Many of his tales are constructed around a quirky human behaviour, one that most men will find immoral. In a score of them he juxtaposes good and dishonourable in the sam

  Of Sin and Virtue Peace in life is transient. Disquiet, as one contemplates an unknown future, is inescapable. Belief in God and practice of religion are universal attributes of humans. To most, this faith offers a support to bear the vicissitudes of life with a semblance of fortitude. In a changing world, ways of which are beyond our ken, religion with its seemingly timeless teachings and rituals, provides one stable refuge to the anguished soul. Perhaps this is why, freedom to practice the religion of their choice, is an inalienable right, guaranteed by the constitutions of all secular states. In the early twentieth century, a brutal persecution of religion was unleashed in Mexico, in the form of a socialist revolution, by the president Plutarco Elias Calles. English novelist, Graham Greene, was commissioned by a publisher to write about this anti-clerical purge. He visited the provinces of Tabasco and Chiabas in Mexico, in the spring of 1938. His travel account was published